Gaza War Protesters Interrupt Pelosi Interview on Colbert

[Mark Jeffries]

Nancy Pelosi was being interviewed on Colbert last night live from Chicago's 4,000-seat Auditorium Theatre, where the upper balcony gives you the view of dots on the stage, when some Gaza war protester starts screaming at her while she's talking--Colbert stops the interview and tosses to a commercial, where i assume security escorted the protester out of the theater--when they come back more protesters are screaming at her, causing presumably bleeps (on delay, of course), Colbert pleading to let her speak and finally wrapping up the interview when it's obvious it's not going to stop--they kept quiet for his other guest, Hakeem Jeffries (no relation)--clip in link:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2024/08/21/stephen-colbert-protest-nancy-pelosi-chicago-dnc-late-show-jb-pritzker-hakeem-jeffries?utm_medium=sms&utm_source=subtext&utm_campaign=DNC-group-chat

All of this is why all I could think of was "Get her, Dave!" at the Chicago Theatre when Letterman was there and Oprah was the guest. As much as it's great to have 4,000 people chanting "STEE-PHEN! STEE-PHEN!",  theaters that size are harder to control the crowd, especially considering that we know that protesters are in town for the DNC. Now I realize that "TDS" is using the Athenaeum Theatre (a surprise to me, considering that since Noah was there in 2016 the church that owns the theater has changed the management team to one headed by a rightwinger who wants the theater's programming to reflect "traditional Catholic values" and supposedly told someone that he did not want "homosexuals" in the building), but the Studebaker around the corner from the Auditorium is available, the two Goodman spaces are available, the theater at Water Tower Place is available and the Steppenwolf Ensemble Theatre is available (it's a theater-in-the-round, but they can work around that--the mainstage there has Rachel Bloom's one-woman show right now).  All of them smaller and easier to stop possible audience disruption.

[Stan S]

How much of a delay do they build in for Colbert’s shows? And will that be doubled for the next two nights? Stephen handled it as well as can be expected with it being live. They need to do the TV preacher thing and plant some listeners in the audience lines :) 

-Stan

[Dave Sikula]

Colbert's audience of howling baboons is difficult enough to deal with in the Ed, but increase that by tenfold and it's been especially obnoxious.

I understand his urge to work live and on-location, but these shows have been even more annoying and toothless than the usual run.

==Dave Sikula